LATI 50 INTRODUCTION TO LATIN AMERICA RACE, CLASS, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE (part 2)
CLASS STRUCTURE Upper Class: Urban (industrialists, bankers) Rural (landowners) Middle Class: Urban (merchants, lawyers, etc.) Rural (small farmers) Popular/Lower Class: Urban (workers) Rural (peasants, campesinos) National Institutions: State (including military) Church External Sector: Economic (investors, merchants) Political (foreign governments)
SHADINGS BY RACE Race as a social construct Indigenous peoples: exploitation and discrimination African-origin peoples and slavery Myths of miscegenation: Mestizaje Mulattos and Brazilian “escape hatch”
THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Shares island of Hispaniola with Haiti A “plantation society” (sugar and slaves) U.S. military occupation Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in power 1965U.S. military intervention Joaquín Balaguer in power 1978-electoral democracy
Hispaniola
THE QUESTION OF RACE ¾ population of mixed African-European descent Cultural and social stratification: white > black Antagonism with Haiti (occupation ), uncertainty over identity Trujillo cult of hispanidad, defining Dominicans as “the most Spanish people of America” 1992 celebration of “discovery and evangelization of America” Reassessment of African legacy?